There's been sooo many variety show attempts in the last two decades, each one worse and worse.
If people want to see how terrible a "variety Muppet Show" in the modern era would be, go check out the French Muppet Show or the recent Lady Gaga thing.
Meanwhile I loved the heck out of Disney Drive Muppets, and they weren't even trying with that. And I love the cinematography from those stills alone we've been teased with from the ABC Muppets pilot.
I was talking about variety shows in general. Not that they were all bad, mind you, but most of them were. And that was a case of everything being virtually the same in that era as well. The 1970's baffle me. They had these groundbreaking sitcoms, these very good police shows, yet these cheesy variety shows that aren't even good enough to be camp and
the worst cartoons of all time. The original Muppet Show managed to do a great job and even subtly deconstruct that, letting it flourish just when the over-saturation of variety shows was coming to an end. Remember reading about an Addams Family variety show that never made it past the pilot and one reviewer said (and I quote) "it couldn't have been worse if they done it in Blackface." Eek!
I wouldn't even bother to call the Gaga thing a variety special so much as a clumsy, rushed attempt to promote 2 things and failing at both. And MT suffered from trying to be The Muppet Show with a hip Jay Leno talk show vibe (remember when he was considered "hip" and people actually liked him?) and failing at both, yet found it's voice just before it was cancelled. And it's a shame since it did show signs of great humorous pop culture bits. Seinfeld Babies, Co-Dependents Day, Kermit's Talking Heads cover. All great bits. Then you look at some of the episodes of the last season with multiple guests, character driven storylines, and backstage plotlines. Why couldn't the rest of the show be like that? it was amazing.
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